Tag: IoT

Malaysia National 4IR Policy — An Opinion

[This article was originally published in IoT World]

We are aware that earlier in 2018, Malaysia launched National Industry 4WRD Policy Framework, however, the focus is on the manufacturing sector as we know manufacturing is one the biggest contributor to Malaysia’s GDP. However, it sparked interest in other sectors and industries as well because as described in the World Economic Forum (WEF), that the emerging technologies will have a disruptive impact on jobs of the future.

Here’s my personal opinions on Malaysia 4IR Policy:

  1. World Agenda — When Henrik Von Scheel (also known as Father and Originator of Industry 4.0) masterminded Germany’s digital agenda in 2009 with a belief that the industry will be transform by the fusion of digital, virtual and physical world, also called the cyber-physical systems, and this triggered the emergence of new era of fourth industrial revolution. This has been emphasized again by World Economic Forum in 2016. The fusion of various technologies have transformed and disrupted many businesses. And Malaysia should not be left behind.
  2. Covid-19 the Master Enabler — It took many years for us to educate the importance of digital transformation, but Covid-19 made us realise how important it us to transform our business, education and almost everything using digital. Internet seems to be mandatary in almost every part of lives. And to move towards IR 4.0, we must have the fundamental of IR 3.0 in place i.e. digital and virtual (content in digital with good access to Internet). That’s the more reason Malaysia also launched Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint (MyDigital) in early 2021 to encourage the usage of digital technology to transform the economic sector.
  3. Humanizing Technology — Although 4IR can create new jobs, but it also create threats to the existing ones. Many people down the street are not aware how complex technologies of 4IR can help them in their daily lives. Thus, the aspiration of 4IR policy to ensure that it can provide quality of life by benefitting the society such as focus on happiness, healthy living, work-life balance, overcome social issues and sustainable living will help the adoption of 4IR technology to be easier and acceptable. Technology should not be seen as a threat but in fact should be seen to help them.
  4. Budget Justification — We hoped that the 4 policy thrusts, 16 strategies and 32 National initiatives can help the relevant agencies to justify for their 2022 budget. Without sufficient funding, it’s very difficult for us to maintain our momentum. We also want that the bureaucracy of 4IR fund approval need to be reduce to avoid unnecessary delays as what we have seen in the Industry 4WRD initiatives (Some SMEs complained that even a 4IR readiness assessment can take a year to complete. This does not include the 4IR intervention programmes).
  5. Producer-Nation Agenda — How do we increase our graduates salary if we are just being a Consumer-Nation? How do we sustain and grow our Startups if all the products and technologies are bought from overseas? How do we (i.e. the industries) share our technology or product map to Universities if we are not in control of our own product roadmap? One of the policy thrust — “Accelerate the 4IR technology innovation and adoption” is a “battle-cry” for many local Startups. Support them even if they are still small and have no reference sites to show or demonstrate. Support the innovators by being the early market adopters that are willing to take the risk to test out the new and untested local products. One day this small companies can grow and create more jobs for the country.

This can be my opinion and probably a wish list. Let’s see the actions that will be taken in the next 6–12 months. A Project Management Office (PMO) need to be setup to ensure transparency and KPIs are met.

IoT & IR 4 0 — Are You Ready for Jobs That Don’t Exist Yet?

The industry always complained that the talents that graduated from the local universities are not equipped with the latest knowledge. The industry expected the graduates that they hired can immediately start their job without sending them to further workshops or courses. The world is moving fast and thus it’s imperative to start contributing in the early part of the career. The employers are getting impatient as the competition heats up.

That’s why it’s important for the Universities to get feedback from their Industry Advisory Panel (IAP) to advice on the current technology and job trends. The lecturers too need to get involve in industry events to understand what’s the hottest job nowadays.

We know that the change the content of the syllabus or approving new programmes in the University can take months or sometimes 1–2 years. This would require the teaching staff to also equip themselves with the new knowledge. It’s a challenge nowadays to keep with the technological pace but that’s the reality.

Looking at the future technological trends and the business disruptions happening worldwide, the Universities should now anticipate what’s coming and to quickly adapt their current courses or programmes to match with the future jobs.

Check out the video below by Dr. Mazlan Abbas, CEO of FAVORIOT regarding this challenge.

FREE IoT eBooks for Download!

Download FREE IoT eBooks

I have decided to make two of my IoT eBooks available for FREE to anyone interested to download.

The first eBook is entitled “Your IoT Journey“. It is a compilation of my best and selected written articles which was published from my IoT World Blog. It’s not written in a very technical manner because the idea is to share the issues, challenges and the tips for anyone who’s interested to take the IoT journey. After several years, the topic about IR 4.0 become a hot one. But it also bring along confusion regarding the different Era of Industrial Revolutions.

The second eBook or rather eNotes entitled simply as “IoT Notes” was originally written to illustrate the complexity of IoT and IR 4.0 in a simpler way. I used GoodNotes application and my iPad Air to draw and add colours to the descriptions. Hopefully, this will become a companion notes to anyone who is learning IoT and IR 4.0.

Hope you enjoy the two eBooks and kindly share with others. Hopefully we can share the knowledge and create the next Generation-IoT.

  1. Your IoT Journey — Download
  2. IoT Notes (Compilation) — Download

IoT — The Fundamental Building Block of IR 4.0

IR 4.0 comprised of many technological building blocks. It is made of AI Block, VR/AR Block, Big Data Blocks, Blockchain Block, IoT Block and many others. However, IoT is seen one the most fundamental block for IR 4.0 is because it the source of collecting data either from people (using wearables with sensors) or things (using sensors) or environment (also sensors).

IoT — The Building Block

As many has said — “Data is King” or “Data is the New Currency”. However, I do believed, collecting raw data which is purely bits and bytes or the zeroes and ones or even numerical numbers are insufficient unless we can turn that data into something more meaningful that can answer the question of who, what, when or where. That is when the data is transformed into “knowledge”. And if it can answer the question of “how”, then it has been turned into “knowledge” and the best part is when it can answer the question of “why”, which is what we called “understanding”. And people make decision based on the understanding.

But the, how do we collect all the relevant data? Which is why it’s very important for us to begin with the right questions. The who, what, where and when can be gathered via relevant sensors such as RFID, GPS, clock, temperature, humidity, etc.

For some, IoT seems to be a very complex “technology” or rather a combination of several technologies. We need to know how sensors and the electronic devices can capture and send data through some for of connectivity. What are the various networks that can support efficiently the amount of data with an affordable cost. And how or where these data will be aggregated — will it be on a normal server with a simple database or will it be hosted on a cloud? What is the sensors came in different forms and protocols? How do we manage these devices?

And what can we do with all the data that has been collected? How should we displayed them — on simple historical or real-time graphs? Can we do more than just a dashboard and go beyond with some form of machine-learning? And how easily for us to manage the data with the never ending customer requests?

It’s important for us to know the various components in IoT and how it relates with each other so that when you embark on an IoT journey, it will be well-planned design and architecture.

[Originally published in IoT World]

Overcoming the Challenges of Making IoT a Ubiquitous Service

You are likely benefitting from The Internet of Things (IoT) today, whether you’re familiar with the term. If your phone automatically connects to your home, or if you have a smartwatch counting your steps, congratulations! You have adopted one small piece of a very large IoT pie, even if you haven’t adopted the name yet.

Ubiquitous IoT

IoT may sound like a business buzzword, but it’s a real technological revolution that will impact everything we do. It’s the next Internet Tsunami of new possibility that is destined to change the face of technology, as we know it.

IoT represents a massive wave of technical innovation. Highly valuable companies will be built and new ecosystems will emerge from bridging the offline world with the online into one gigantic new sensor network. Our limited understanding of the possibilities hinders our ability to see future applications for any new technology. Mainstream adoption of desktop computers and the Internet didn’t take hold until they became affordable and usable. When that occurred, fantastic and creative innovation ensued. We are on the cusp of that tipping point with the Internet of Things.

IoT matters because it will create new industries, new companies, new jobs, and new economic growth. It will transform existing segments of our economy: retail, farming, industrial, logistics, cities, and the environment. It will turn your smartphone into the command center and gateway for both digital and physical objects in your life. You will live and work smarter, not harder — and what we are seeing now is only the tip of the iceberg.

A very important concept within IoT is the “last 100 meters connectivity” concept, which refers to the low-power wireless devices that operate in the short-range of 100 meters. These are the devices that represent the growth in IoT. In fact, 90% of the market share will be in the small things that are in the short range of 50 m to 100 m. The “last 100 meters connectivity” presents a huge potential since today most of these devices are not yet connected to the Internet.

To overcome these challenges, there are several key factors that must be embraced:

  1. New IoT networks such as NB-IoT, LoRa and SigFox are great choices to the current GSM, 3G or 4G network that can bring along the benefits of good coverage and support low-powered devices
  2. Lower price of deployment will encourage IoT adoption in many sectors.
  3. Urban areas will be the main focus areas of IoT implementation especially in the Smart Manufacturing and Logistics including tracking of goods.
  4. Bigger coverage of NB-IoT will be the turning point for demand in consumer IoT.

[Original article “Challenges of Making IoT a Ubiquitous Service” published in IOT World]

Where Do I Begin My IoT Journey?

What’s your answer when people asked — “Where do I begin my IoT journey?” or “I want to do my PhD in IoT, please advice in which area should I focus” or “I want to implement IoT solution in our Company, could you please propose what applications” or “Please propose IoT solutions for our City”, etc

Many times, I have been asked mainly by two groups of people i.e. (1) Students who wanted to pursue either their Masters or PhD (2) Organizations who wanted to embark their IoT journey but don’t know where to start. The question is too broad that it’s quite impossible to give a very effective or accurate answer without defining the scenario or scope.

The starting point for an IoT journey is to pick an application scenario, understand the problem statement and redefine the scope.

  1. Application scenario — For example, if you want to embark on a Smart City project, you need to pick one of the application scenarios such as parking, transportation, environmental or security, etc. Sometimes, we wonder what ioT applications are considered under the category of “Smart City”? Is it anything which resides in a City (which can be almost all the IoT applications that you can be mentioned) or is it anything that interact between citizens and the government? Which application is more important for the city — is it for the convenience of the citizens or reducing costs of city operations or generating new revenue streams for the city?
  2. Define the Right Problem Statement — Once you have identified the application scenario, you need to ask the right set of questions. It’s critical because not only it will define the right sensors and network connectivity type but it will reduce the risk of gathering the wrong data and thus give wrong insights. The diagram below shows the Value Pyramid. People are willing to pay more if you can answer the question of “Why.”
  3. Redefine the Scope — Sometimes we can become overboard in trying to capture as many data either from sensors data or external data with the intention to have some form of correlation. If you are not a data scientist and not a domain expert, you might be collecting 90% of data which is garbage and unnecessary thus a wastage of storage. Physical sensors are not cheap, thus, placing at the right place and collecting data at the right time is important to ensure you good ROI.

For most businesses, they will use IoT solutions to help lower operating costs, increase productivity, and allow for expansion into new markets.

Where do companies focus their resources or investments when it comes to planning for IoT projects? Among the businesses surveyed by Business Insider that are using IoT solutions, these companies focused on:

  • 66% used IoT technologies for risk reduction. For instance, oil companies are starting to use drones to inspect oil rigs, which can be a dangerous task for humans to perform.
  • 63% used IoT solutions to optimize operations. For example, manufacturers can use sensors to gather data about machines on their assembly line to predict when they might fail, and fix them before experiencing any downtime.
  • 33% used the IoT to develop new or enhance existing products, such as car companies that are putting cellular data connections into their cars to gather data about them and provide Wi-Fi hotspots for passengers.
  • 21% leveraged IoT solutions to enhance customer targeting. A good example of this would be a retailer that uses in-store beacons to target customers with real-time offers sent to their smartphone based on their location in the store.

For most businesses, they will use IoT solutions to help lower operating costs, increase productivity, and allow for expansion into new markets.

Once you have answered the above questions, it will mark your first important steps in your IoT journey.

Please share your experience and what are the main challenges in starting your first step into the hottest topic in the industry — Internet of Things.

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